Naïve. Super

  There’s something suspicious about these Italians. I fear they’re planning a hijacking. The way they smile at each other is ominous. It’s a bit like they share a gruesome secret. I know there exists a kind of explosive that can’t be traced by metal detectors. For all I know they could have their pockets full of explosives. And they most probably have some unreasonable demand. I feel convinced that if they’re going to harm a passenger to show that they’re serious, they will choose me. It would be typical. Maybe they’ll throw me out over the Atlantic. I feel like asking the stewardess to sing me a song, but don’t dare to. I restrain myself and ask for a gin and tonic.

  Now Paul writes that the earth is an atypical place in the universe. Most other places find themselves in a dismal vacuum or encapsulated in gases. And the temperatures are often absurd. We couldn’t have lived a whole lot of other places.

  Maybe we couldn’t have lived in many other times either, he writes. It’s a very hard train of thought to follow. I am trying to understand it. About ten percent of all the people who have ever lived on earth are alive now. We know that. If we assume that human beings will continue to exist, for thousands or millions of years, that means those of us living now are special, because we are alive at an early stage. Those who come after us will be more typical, because, in a relative sense, it’ll be more common to live then than it is to live now. But we have no reason to believe those of us living now are special. And if we’re typical, that means few will live after us, and that humankind thereby is approaching the end of its existence.

  Paul makes a thought experiment which is interesting, but which makes me sweat. He’s asking me to picture two urns containing names written on pieces of paper. In the first urn there are ten pieces of paper and in the other one, a thousand. And my name is on one piece of paper and one only. Where do I think the piece of paper with my name on it is most likely to be? Naturally, that’s impossible to know. One can really only guess, but as far as probability goes, the chance is fifty times greater that my name will be in the urn with a thousand pieces of paper in it, Paul writes.

  Next, the pieces of paper are removed from the urns, and on the third piece of paper in the urn holding ten, is my name. The fact that my name is drawn this early is more probable in an urn with ten pieces of paper than in an urn with a thousand pieces of paper.

  If this is made to count for everybody who will ever live, Paul claims to be able to calculate that there is a 2/3 chance the total number is limited and that we’re approaching the end. Paul admits these are just speculations, but I still feel an incredibly urgent need to hammer.

  The hammer-and-peg is in the compartment above me. It’s very close, but all my fellow passengers seem to be sleeping. I don’t dare to. The Italians are sleeping, too. Or pretending to.

  Now it’s getting worse. Paul is starting to draw in biological factors. It borders on the unbearable. He says the human being exists due to an unknown number of improbable coincidences that have occurred through history. The larger the number of improbabilities, the nearer we are to the end. If the number is just one or two, humankind’s total cycle of existence will correspond quite accurately to the life span of the sun. But if the number is higher, and most biologists believe it is, our remaining time on earth is far shorter.

  We can make a formula, based on basic probability calculus, to calculate how long we can expect to survive. If an n amount of improbable steps were involved in the development of homo sapiens of today, and the total life of the sun is eight billion years, we can expect to be eradicated, in one way or another, in eight thousand years.

  I hope my brother will be there to meet me at the airport when we touch down. I don’t want to be alone.

  The City

  I think everything is the Empire State Building. I’ve been thinking that way all day. But my brother says we haven’t seen it yet. I’m thinking it again now.

  This is New York. I’m letting myself be overwhelmed. It is strange being here. I’ve been hearing about this city and seeing it on film for as long as I can remember. Now I feel sure for the first time that it exists. Everybody has arrived here. Norwegians have arrived here. Poor. With dreams. You can make it here. Anyone can make it here. Still. I could also make it here. Make money.

  Americans seem to live according to the simple theory that two is better than one, three is better than two, etc. For example, they believe two hundred dollars is better than one hundred. It’s a cute theory.

  Now I think I’m seeing the Empire State Building again. My brother is shaking his head. I’m absorbing an incredible amount of impressions as we walk in these streets. How many impressions can I handle in one day?

  The sensory impulses are queuing up. Some of them will naturally pass me by. The brain just can’t keep up with the eyes. Or the ears. Or the nose. But I seem to be ranking some of the impressions as more valuable than others. I have no idea how this classification happens. But it’s happening.

  I have decided to make a note of the essentials. What is left after sifting it all out. What I remember when night comes and I am about to go to sleep.

  I think I’m more concerned with things that are very big and things that are very small than with all the stuff in between. This becomes apparent after only a few hours in New York. Most things are very big here. The houses, for example. The skyscrapers. They’re everywhere. And they’re big. I have a suspicion that it is partly about prestige. First, one guy built a house that was fairly tall, then his friend built one that was taller. And then everybody went hey guys, let’s build some goddamn houses, and let’s make them tall. Never mind what’s in them, let’s build them tall. Let’s build them fucking tall.

  There is every reason to believe the theory which says that two is better than one also says that big is better than small and that tall is better than short. It is, in many ways, a charming thought.

  Hardly any of the houses reveal anything about what’s inside. It could be anything. It probably is, too. I’ve had the feeling several times during the course of today that the houses aren’t being used for anything. That they’re just standing there.

  My brother is reading out of a guide book that there are one million offices in this part of town. He says there are offices in all the buildings I believe aren’t being used for anything. I tell him he can’t be sure.

  The cars are big. The trucks are enormous. They look like they’ve been designed to kill people.

  Many of the people are also big. Fat. Their trainers are all squashed on one side and worn thin because they weigh so much.

  This is what I so far think is big and long and tall:

  – The houses

  – The cars

  – The trucks

  – The fat people

  – The pizza slices

  – The streets

  – The fish lying outside the fish shops

  – The avocado pears

  – The neon lights

  – The park

  – Some of the dogs

  – The cups from which my brother drinks coffee in cafes

  – Some of the shops

  – The mailboxes

  This is what I think is small:

  – The parking spaces

  – Some of the dogs

  – Some of the bananas

  – The chocolate bars

  – The plastic spoon that came with the ice cream cone I bought

  I am tired, but don’t want to sleep. I’m spending my six hours walking around in the streets with my brother. It’s intense. I’m beyond tired, and things keep happening all the time. It’s a bit like having a temperature. The sounds are getting distorted.

  My brother and I have had a trying debate. At first, everything was fine. He came to meet me at the airport and we gave each other a hug. We put my luggage in his apartment and talked for a while. My brother was wondering how I was doing. I told him about my thoughts and worries and about my little activities. The only thing he wanted to hear about
was Lise.

  He thought the rest of it was rubbish. And he has said he doesn’t want to hear a word about time zones, or about time intervals shorter than a second or longer than a light year. And not about space. I may think whatever I want, but I am to keep it to myself. I think he is extremely harsh. He’s saying that he had a suspicion I was thinking about things like that. The point of inviting me to New York was to get my thoughts going in other directions.

  We’re gonna have fun, he says.

  I don’t doubt that he means well, but I think he’s going too far. He doesn’t want to hear a word about the hammer-and-peg, for instance. Not one. He’s going to break it if he finds me hammering. I’ll have to hammer on the sly. It’s humiliating. After all, I am an adult. Adults shouldn’t have to be closet-hammerers. I am trying to confront my problems in a mature way, but my brother is keeping me from it.

  I think he’s got problems with time himself, but that he still hasn’t found out. One day he’ll be the one who hits the wall. When that happens I’ll let him hammer as much as he likes. Then he’ll have a guilty conscience about refusing to let me do it.

  Now I think I’m seeing the Empire State Building again.

  The Dog

  We are staying in a house where there is a doorman and an elevator attendant. And the apartment is great. But there is a dog in it. There’s a dog in the apartment. Someone called David is supposed to come and fetch the dog. He was supposed to come yesterday. I know nothing about dogs. And my brother is afraid of it. It bothers us that this dog is in the apartment. It’s a black dog. I’ve given it food and water, but I don’t know how often it’s supposed to eat. And somebody will have to walk it soon. It hasn’t been outside since yesterday, when the owners of the apartment went to New Orleans to listen to jazz or something like that. It is obvious that the dog wants to get out. It stays over by the door. My brother says I must walk it. He doesn’t dare to. I don’t even know the dog’s name.

  I attach a leash to the black dog and go outside. On the way down I ask the elevator attendant if he knows anything about dogs, but he shakes his head and says there’s probably not much to know. The dog probably knows where it wants to go.

  Now I’m walking on the street in New York City with a dog. It drags me a few blocks to the south, to a park. It wants to smell everything and it pees a bit here and a bit there. It pees on anything.

  I’ve never quite understood about dogs. People say they’re so wise. That they have intuition and warn you about things that are about to happen. They alert you to avalanches and accidents. It could very well be true. But this dog doesn’t seem particularly bright. So far it hasn’t alerted me to anything. In the park the dog goes completely mad. It sees some other dogs and starts jumping up and down. It seems completely irrational.

  I distinguish myself from the other dog owners. I don’t know what the dog expects of me. I feel everybody is looking at me. A woman comes over to me. She also has a dog. She tells me that my dog and her dog are best friends. I tell her I come from another country and that this is the first time I have walked a dog. I tell her I don’t even know what the dog’s name is.

  The lady says the dog’s name is Obi and that I must be firm with it.

  Easy, Obi, I say.

  I ask how often it’s supposed to eat and drink and what I’m supposed to do if it starts to crap. The lady gives me a little bag. She asks me if I didn’t get any instructions and I tell her someone called David is going to come and fetch the dog. He could be here any time now.

  I speak English to Obi.

  Come on, I say. Good dog.

  Now Obi’s sitting down to take a shit. On the grass. I think it’s disgusting. Joggers and children look towards me while I pick the dog turd up with the bag. Now I’m standing with a bag full of dog turd in my hand. It’s absurd.

  This is a completely different life. People must think I’m a dog owner in New York. That I live here and have an apartment and a dog. That I pick up dog turds like this one every day, before and after work. It’s a staggering thought.

  Seeing as I’m not a dog owner in New York, that also means everybody else could be something other than what they seem to be. That means it’s impossible to know anything at all.

  All these people. They are everywhere. On the streets, in the parks, in the shops, in the skyscrapers. What do they do? It’s impossible to tell what they do by looking at them.

  I suppose they are trying to make it all come together. Just like we do in Norway and everywhere else. They try to make it all work. I see them while they’re on their way from one place to the next, torn out of their context. They’re on their way elsewhere to make things work there. Things have to work everywhere, and on many levels. It all has to work on a personal level, with the family, at work and with friends, in the local community, and of course globally.

  Quite a few things have to gel.

  And as I stand there with the dog, at an intersection on the east side of Manhattan, I wonder whether all this will ever gel for me. Will I make it?

  I don’t think I am any different from other people. I have the same dreams. I want a family. I want a house. A car. Why shouldn’t I want that? Everybody does. And when I have it, I want it all to work.

  I feel I am starting to care about all these people. I understand them. Of course they have to walk here in the street, they have to get somewhere. Things have to work everywhere. I am thinking, we’re in this together. Keep it up. It’s going to be just fine.

  Hopi

  I keep nagging my brother to take us up the Empire State Building. He says we’re going to do it on a sunny day with clear weather. We walk and we walk. We look at houses, at people and cars. Shops. We eat and drink. I’ve bought a bunch of very small bananas. We’ve walked tens of kilometres, and I’ve got a new pair of shoes, because the old ones were giving me blisters. It was very sore. I got a pair of Nikes. Hiking boots. My brother paid for them with one of his credit cards.

  I always buy Nike. And Levi’s. I think they’re the best. I really do. I don’t even consider buying other brands. Somebody must have done their job very well.

  My brother is interested in art. I didn’t know that. There are many things I don’t know about him. But it’s good that we’re together. Even though he sometimes gets a little stern. We walk around in SoHo for a while. Visiting galleries. I see plans for a project that has tremendous appeal to me.

  Somebody is thinking of building a massive concrete structure over the San Andreas Fault in California. It is a sculpture. It’ll be eighty metres long and sixty metres wide. And seven metres tall. It will be built with a type of concrete claimed to be the most durable material there is. The slab will weigh 65,000 tonnes. But the ground on which it’s going to stand is moving. Quite fast. The concrete slab will be torn in half, and the two parts will drift apart at a speed of 6–9 cm a year. In 43 million years the left part of the slab will be where Alaska is today. This is art with a purpose. All projects ought to be like this.

  In another gallery I find a folder about Einstein. Made by an art student. She has read a lot about Einstein and found information about him and gathered it all in a folder called the Einstein Papers. I want to buy it. It costs 20 dollars. My brother thinks it’s foolish, of course. He tries to talk me out of it. But Einstein is my friend. I buy the folder. My brother is shaking his head.

  Now my brother stands pointing at the Empire State Building. I can see it. It towers in the landscape. And the top floors are illuminated by a blue light. I want us to go there. Now. But my brother has made other plans. It is late. He thinks we should go home and watch TV.

  We drink a beer, while a woman on TV is saying that if I have an accident, I should call her and she will help me make a court case and get money from those responsible for the accident or from those who own the ground on which the accident happened. She makes it sound so simple.

  In bed, I read the Einstein Papers. It’s just twenty-odd sheets of A4 paper. Some photographs a
nd a bit of writing here and there. Claire, who made the folder, writes that Einstein was a kind man who cared about people, and that he was very concerned that science should be a blessing to humanity. Einstein had two aspirations in life, it says. The first was to lead a simple life. The second was to formulate a theory that could express the interconnectedness of nature, and which would ultimately lead to peace and justice for all.

  One of the sheets is a copy of one of the manuscript pages on which Einstein wrote his theory. I look respectfully at the sheet. Some words and some figures. Maybe this is where it says that time doesn’t quite exist. The sheet looks like this:

  Albert Einstein, 6 1/4 page autograph manuscript of his paper, Eincheitliche Feldtheorie und Hamilton’sches Prinzip, 1929.

  SWANN GALLERIES

  The best thing in the folder is a picture of Einstein together with a group of Indians. Einstein is smiling and wearing feathers on his head. And it says that the Hopi Indians are the best suited to understand the theory of relativity. Their language does not have a word for time, and the concepts of past and future do not exist. They don’t see time as linear, but as a circular space where past, present and future exist side by side. When I get home, I want to check and see if there is a Hopi community in Oslo, and whether I can frequent it even though I’m not a Hopi.

  Before I go to sleep, I write down what I remember the most from my first two days in this city:

  – A man in uniform who came running out of a building to carry the luggage for an elegantly dressed woman getting out of a taxi

  – Four Asian-looking boys playing volleyball on the grass in a park

  – A man playing classical guitar in a subway station

  – A large area cordoned off due to a burst water main